“I exercise at a great gym and do dance classes mixed with some calisthenics. I really enjoy that because it reminds me of ’80s aerobics. It’s fun! I also bike ride, or sometimes I swim. Because I stand a lot, I don’t really like to walk long distances. Running or jogging is out of the question.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Repeatedly opening the oven – or worse, taking out the turkey to baste it – slows down the momentum of cooking.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I have a daughter who has taught me a lot along the way.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Fresh herbs really belong anywhere you put them.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I feel like a princess with a knife. I’ve wanted to be an Iron Chef forever.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Food is ever-changing and ever moving forward and getting more and more complex.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“My most memorable meal was with my parents at Joel Robuchon’s Restaurant Jamin in Paris. It was Christmas 1982, and the flavors – from cauliflower and caviar to crab and tomato – astounded me. It was the first time I remember thinking that I would like to really learn how to cook.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“My last meal on Earth? The obvious answer is a plate of my mother’s scrambled eggs.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“One of the most practical utensils I can’t live without is my ‘Joyce Chen’ Scissors. They cut with precision.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“A splash of red wine vinegar can pull things together like a pinch of salt.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Who doesn’t love a stuffed cherry tomato?”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“It’s essential to make sure you have proper kitchen tools for food storage – like cling wrap, bags, and containers – because they help keep food fresher longer.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I feel very passionate about maintaining the same level of standard and respect for the food as an Iron Chef myself.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“There’s not enough time in each day to really focus enough attention on any one thing, but I’m doing my best. I have a great group of people who support me, and I don’t sleep a lot. It’s like I’m on a constantly spinning merry-go-round, and every day, I’m wondering when it will stop so I can get off. I love what I do, so that helps a lot.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“To make fluffy scrambled eggs, the best trick is to whisk in a splash of water and nothing else. Cream, milk, and other liquids drag the eggs down!”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Buying food from farmers and people that I know adds that human element that I love.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Sometimes I look up a recipe for chicken and tomatoes and end up cooking pork. The inspiration gets lost in translation.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“It’s amazing how meaty cauliflower can be.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I’ve had the privilege of having a lot of amazing people cook for me.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I think we love bacon because it has all the qualities of an amazing sensory experience. When we cook it, the sizzling sound is so appetizing, the aroma is maddening, the crunch of the texture is so gratifying and the taste delivers every time.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Winter blues are cured every time with a potato gratin paired with a roast chicken.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Walnuts are so rich. I also love that you can chew them for five minutes. Then I eat a couple of golden raisins as a palate cleanser because they are really tart, and then more walnuts. It’s a great snack for me.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I didn’t cook that much as a kid. My mother was cooking, and I was her helper. We made dishes together.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I really love muscle cars. I don’t think people might realize that about me. I really want to go to an auto auction and blow my life savings on a Camaro. They have such design around them, such panache.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I love watching a single pork chop seasoned with garlic and shallots cook and see the fat bubble around it.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I know that some people use lavender, incense, and cake as sedatives, but for me, a ‘nose bath’ in an old book just does something.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“People don’t take enough advantage of the refrigerator door.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I love using hummus as centerpiece and then making different containers of vegetables for fun dipping.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I think I will never stop having mentors.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“If you’re making a salad of any kind, cut the herbs, stems and all, and toss them into your mixed greens salad, a Romaine salad, iceberg, Bibb – it just adds a special touch.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I love to eat. I could make a professional sport out of it.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“For me no good food is illuminated without acidity.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Red wine vinegar has some personality as well acidity.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I woke up on May 15, 1991, the day of my Barnard graduation, and I said to myself, ‘By the end of today you will decide what you want to do with the rest of your life.’”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“My father always said, ‘If you love what you do, you won’t mind slogging through it for several hours a day.’”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“It’s amazing the relationships you forge in a kitchen. When you cooperate in an environment that’s hot. Where there’s a lot of knives. You’re trusting your well-being with someone you’ve never before met or known.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“The hardest thing for me is restraint.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I bent my head over a stove in my early 20s and picked it up in my 30s.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I don’t show just anyone how to crust a sea bass. That’s sacred information.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“If you want to have a relationship, at some point you have to let yourself get caught. That’s what I did. I got caught.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“If I want my daughter to try something, I eat it in front of her repeatedly without forcing the issue and, with some trial and error, the world is our oyster!”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Food is so heavily connected to memory.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“My reasons for becoming a chef are somewhat of a cliche. I always loved to eat but it was watching my parents cook that really served as the impetus for my career choice.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“The better the ingredients, the more farmers I can buy from, the closer I feel to the food I want to make that represents what I care about as a chef.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“The hardest thing about being a full time chef is leaving my work behind when I go home at night. I’ll toss and turn about a menu item or forget to order produce and wake up at 4 A.M. in a cold sweat over some artichokes.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I used to sleep with the phone right by my pillow but I’m getting better. Now it sits on the table a few feet away.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Give yourself enough time to really learn how to cook.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I find myself hoping I can get on a TV show, and then people from Oklahoma will come to my restaurant. Then I’ll be able to make enough money to open my own place.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I didn’t harbor a huge desire to become a chef until I graduated from college.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“My mom is a self-taught home cook, so books that offer guidelines on how to organize menus are critical to ‘cook from the book’ people like her.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Dione Lucas has been obscured by larger-than-life personalities like Julia Child, but she had it going on. She is like the horse that came in second place, whose name we can’t remember. It takes more than just one horse to make a race.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I wouldn’t call being a chef gratifying in a lot of ways. It’s an act of love.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I like Bobby Flay’s attitude and his approach towards food. I think he’s just passionate and very honest. I find him very honest about food and cooking and ingredients and I admire that because I think that it’s easy to get away from that for various reasons.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I have to be honest and say that I never really feel like there’s one person that I really want to cook for. I just want my food to always get better and always be evolving and for there to always be movement in what I make. I would say I strive for that more than anything else.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I think that ‘celebrity’ and ‘chef’ should be a permanent oxymoron.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“You have a shelf-life on TV.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Having students was so inspiring.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Every once in a while, I want to get up and cook.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I used to run track in high school and was unexceptional in every way.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I think unadulterated products and smaller portion sizes mean consumption of less food overall. Portion is everything. The first time I bought a scoop of ice cream in Paris, they weighed the ice cream on a scale before putting it on the cone. It was so small, it fell into the cone as she handed it to me.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I try to sit still for about 15 minutes each morning without making lists or running in overdrive.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“You have to be disciplined about being in the kitchen.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“To me, ‘Chopped’ is a great platform for championing great causes.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Americans will not buy irregular-looking or oddly shaped vegetables!”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“We have to get out there and explain that imperfect tastes just as good.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I watched ‘Iron Chef ‘ for years, and I thought, ‘That’s playing for the New York Yankees.’ I made that my version of being Derek Jeter, and I worked really, really hard to win that.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I shop at the market, and that informs what I make.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I like food to be really simple but have a lot of technique all the same.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“When we eat something at a restaurant, however simple it may look, there’s something in it that makes you think, ‘Well, I couldn’t quite do this from home.’”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I’m interested in food and sharing my passion with a community of like-minded people. All of the celebrity stuff that comes along with that is just an incidental byproduct of being able to do what I love for a living.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“When we talk about chefs, we often talk about their love of food or their passion for it, but cooking is also about making a living; it’s a job.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“People in professional kitchens may love what they do, but sometimes it’s just something that puts food on the table.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“As a chef, a mom, and a member of Team No Kid Hungry, I believe that every child deserves three meals a day, every day.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I like to take a day off and enjoy fast food for what it is. I have to say that in New York, I’m really partial about taco trucks. I mean, I really can’t handle it. There is something about catching all those ingredients piled on top of each other: it puts me in a tizzy. I love it. I’m kind of a taco truck junkie.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“A homemade hamburger can be a real treat.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Make dinner with the goal of stretching it out for lunch in the back of your mind. Making more of one thing is cheaper than buying more varied ingredients for each meal.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Make a stir-fried rice dish with some cut-up chicken and any vegetables folded into the rice for a ‘one pot’ meal lunch that has it all – protein, starch and vegetables.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“My mom, ever the Italian, made braised chicken with tomato.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I like all of McClure’s pickles, but my personal favorites are the spicy ones.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I am driven by ingredients. My Italian heritage and French training inevitably poke through as well, guiding my techniques.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I love ‘The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook’ by Dione Lucas. A huge source of information and inspiration. The book is organized by menu, and the recipes are unusual and exciting.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I really cringe at the sight of pattypan squash. So pretty and cute and having no taste or exciting texture. Dull.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I baked the coffee cake recipe from ‘The Joy of Cooking’ over and over again when I was a kid.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“The longer I look at something, the more my imagination churns and I can find somewhere to put it.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Freeze herbs by stem and all – don’t just freeze the leaves. It’s better to keep them sturdier. Put the stems and the leaves together into a plastic bag, and just wrap it up and freeze it like that.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“’Iron Chef America’ is so real. Imagine putting on television the whole process of making that food, the technique. It’s all about technique. It doesn’t even matter if you show the faces sometimes.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Mashed potatoes with stuff in it? That’s ’90s.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Short ribs in the middle of a hamburger? That was pretty groundbreaking.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I’ve roasted a somewhat frozen turkey, and it’s come out just fine.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I don’t know anyone who hasn’t overcooked at least one turkey, myself included. It’s easy to do.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Every time I feel like something is missing from a dish, I think, ‘Oh, I know, I’ll add a pinch of dry ginger.’ If it’s not salt and it’s not vinegar, it’s probably missing dry ginger.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“The hardest thing for me is restraint. I see fresh beans and ramps, and I start to quiver.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“If you want to have a relationship, at some point you have to let yourself get caught.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I didn’t want to write a cheffy cookbook with dehydrated ham chips.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I love roasted beets with goat cheese. I am also a fruit addict.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I love the whole process of making, serving, and eating hearty soups like lentil, potato leek and carrot, to name a few.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Make something simple a few times until you ‘master’ it and move on to the next thing. Take a cooking class! Buy a cookbook that specializes in foods or a cuisine you enjoy.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“If I am making a spice rub or a spice mix for a braise or even just to crust a piece of fish, I’ll use mustard seeds. If you soak them in a little bit of vinegar and let them get plumped and soft and then you puree them, they’re delicious.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“There’s a freshness to the approach of teen chefs. They’re lighthearted, and they’re not afraid to take risks.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I learned so much from ‘Iron Chef’ about ingredients, about the courage to put yourself out there.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Stuffed cherry tomatoes are satisfying without being filling and make a great alternative to bread-based starters. You can assemble these appetizers ahead of time and refrigerate them until you’re ready to serve.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Understand that nutrition plays a huge role in athletes’ lives, and one of the most nutritious ways to eat is to cook your own food.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I think no one would dispute that ‘Chopped’ is a highly athletic television show.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I think that cakes should have touches of candy bar in order for it really to hit all those childhood notes on the keyboard.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I grew up in Midtown Manhattan.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I love it when a few simple ingredients come together on a plate, and I think, ‘Wow, that’s a dish.’”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I grew up in a house where I was a spectator to the sport of cooking. In that way, I just learned so much about what it really takes to make food.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I’ve always been a great collector and lover of cookbooks.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Once you make a cookbook, you live with it as your own for the rest of your life, like a yearbook.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Ganache is a mix of chocolate and cream. Warm cream, warm chocolate, they want to get to know each other – they’re happy.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“If it’s not messy and it doesn’t drip over the sides, it’s not a holiday hot chocolate -it’s just an average hot chocolate.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“The best place to use vanilla beans is anywhere where they won’t be mixed in with a million other flavors. Anything with dairy, yogurt, milk, cream, or eggs – any custard or flan – how can it be bad?”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“I’ve thrown vanilla beans into mustard. Nothing crazy or grainy, just normal dijon. It’s great for duck. Smear some of that right on the duck, coupled with some roast plums, and it all comes together in that savory over sweet over savory over sweet way we all love.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Scrambled eggs are so simple, but they don’t wait or taste better cold!”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Part of health is variety!”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“It stuns me how effective children can be in their messaging, and I believe that every child should enjoy that basic right to become an adult. Getting rid of childhood cancers is one effective way to reach that goal.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
“Easter is an arts and crafts moment where your whole family and friends can get involved.”
― Alex Guarnaschelli
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